Winnipeg's population exploded between 1900 and 1913 as thousands of
immigrants flooded into the city. Answering the Canadian government's
invitation to populate the West, new arrivals from Britain and Northern
and Eastern Europe headed to the city's North End where housing was
cheap and jobs available in nearby rail yards and factories. The
Crump Block, part of which is recreated in the Canada Hall, was built
on Main Street in 1905 to respond to the North End's growing need for
commercial and professional services.

Along with two other Canada Hall modules, the Union Hall and the Chinese
Hand Laundry, the Crump Block and its two shop fronts, the Book and
Music Supply Store and Print Shop, together form a street scene in
Winnipeg during the first half of the twentieth century.

The Book and Music Supply Store

The waves of settlers brought diverse cultures and a multitude of
languages to the Prairie region, placing their own imprint on its economic
and social life. East European groups were especially visible in the new
cultural landscape and eventually made up close to a third of the
Prairie population. Many commercial enterprises emerged to cater to
their cultural needs.

Ethnic Entrepreneur

The first of the two exhibition modules in Many Voices  Language
and Culture in Manitoba faithfully reproduces the combined business
of Ukrainian Booksellers and Publishers and Winnipeg Musical Supply Co.,
a highly successful multi-ethnic business founded by Czech immigrant
Frank Dojacek. Selling such items as newspapers, religious goods, ethnic
records and folk art supplies, the store catered to a dozen different
ethnic groups and served as a veritable resource centre for cultural
survival.

Frank DojacekCMC 997.20.514

Frank Dojacek (1880-1951) acted as a bridge between the Old and New Worlds
for thousands of immigrants settling in Western Canada. Born in Vlasim,
Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic, he immigrated to Winnipeg in
1903. Although trained as a tailor, he soon became a door-to-door book
peddler. In 1906 he founded what became Ukrainian Booksellers and in
1911 moved the business to the Crump Block at 850 Main Street, Winnipeg
where he remained until the mid-1920s. It is this shop location that has
been recreated in the Canada Hall. Architectural details, display cases,
and window displays from this period have been carefully reproduced to
allow the visitor to experience the distinct atmosphere of an early
twentieth-century shop environment.

In his bookstore, Frank Dojacek sold a wide array of merchandise intended
to make his European immigrant clientele feel right at home. He offered
published material including books, newspapers, guides, dictionaries,
textbooks, medical manuals, catechisms, and novels in German, Ukrainian,
Czech, Slovak, and other languages. Ukrainian Booksellers also had an
excellent selection of cards, calendars, and confirmation and wedding
certificates. The store's merchandise was not limited to printed goods,
however. Shoppers could also choose from watches and clocks, jewellery,
decorations, sewing goods, health and beauty products, household appliances,
imported European tools, and sacred and secular decorative images.

The Winnipeg Musical Supply Co. side of the business offered a complete
inventory of guitars, mandolins, zithers, trumpets, clarinets, violins,
accordions, and other musical supplies, as well as repair services for
instruments. In addition, Frank Dojacek sold radios, phonographs, and
the latest records.

The store recreated in this Canada Hall exhibit features goods dating
from the 1920s until the early 1960s  in the original store unsold
stock was not normally discarded but often kept on hand for many years.
Printed publications from the 1910s and 1920s were still in storage at
Ukrainian Booksellers when the business finally ceased operation in the
1980s.

Frank Dojacek ran his business as a family enterprise. Family members
helped him to establish a network of stores in Regina, Edmonton, and
Vancouver.

Interior view of the Ruthenian Booksellers and Publishers
Ltd. store, 850 Main Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, from 1911 to 1925Provincial Archives of Manitoba

Interior of the National Music Co, 101st Street,
Edmonton, ca. 1939. This was another of Frank Dojacek's branch operations
and was run by his daughter Martha (right) and her husband Charles Rispler
(left).Provincial Archives of Manitoba

An Immigrant's Friend

For newcomers to Canada Frank Dojacek and his wife Rosa were sources of
assistance and advice, frequently opening their home to immigrants newly
arrived from Europe. Fluent in seven languages, Dojacek often acted on
behalf of immigrants as interpreter in court. A part-time preacher, he
was active in the Czech and German Baptist churches and in the Czech
cultural community. Dojacek was known as an advocate for immigrant
concerns.

Immigrants making a home in Canada did not do so in isolation. They
frequently followed other family members or friends already established
in the new land and settled in areas where community services were already
available. Along with religious and cultural organisations, Frank Dojacek's
Ukrainian Booksellers business provided an important cultural tie with
the Old Country by providing familiar information, goods, and services,
as well as a location for people to congregate and share concerns,
stories, and experiences. New trends in labour and politics were discussed
and promoted in places such as this.

Museum Collection

When Ukrainian Booksellers and Winnipeg Musical Supply closed its doors
in 1984, only the Winnipeg store was still in operation. By then, the
original immigrant community had moved away from the North End of Winnipeg
to other parts of the city and was no longer in need of the special
services provided by his outlet. In 1997, the Canadian Museum of
Civilization acquired from various sources in Manitoba and Alberta the
thousands of items of the original Dojacek shop stock on display in
the Canada Hall.

View a Quicktime VR panoramic
movie of the store interior (353K).These movies can be viewed with any
Quicktime player, but are best viewed using Apple's Quicktime Player.
If you wish to download the Quicktime VR Player click on the logo:

The Print Shop

The second module of Many Voices  Language and Culture in
Manitoba presents a typical Winnipeg print shop around 1950. This
period environment has been given the business name of North Star Press,
a former Winnipeg printing and publishing firm. Although North Star Press
was never located in the Crump Block, its layout and equipment are typical
of the many small print shops that once existed in Winnipeg.

As they enter the print shop, visitors see a counter with two showcases.
In the first is a sampling of printed material produced by and for various
ethnic and religious communities in Manitoba prior to 1950. Further
examples of printed documents are presented as freshly produced "jobs"
in the front display window of the shop. The second case features
publications and newspapers from the Ukrainian socialist movement in
Winnipeg from the 1920s and 1930s.

In the work area behind this long counter, are tables, shelves, cabinets
for storing tools and equipment, a press for printing proofs, a Little
Giant cylinder-type letterpress, an older style Gordon platen-type
letterpress (once called "the workhorse of the printing industry"), and
a Linotype, a massive black machine designed to cast lines of type using
hot metal.

Access to printed information in languages that immigrants could understand
helped to break down their feelings of isolation in Canada, while
solidifying their sense of ethnic community. This communication also
provided the newcomer with a means to adapt, and eventually to integrate,
into larger Canadian society.

Beginning as early as the 1870s, an ethnic printing industry appeared in
Winnipeg and in other towns in Manitoba to satisfy the European immigrant
community's demand for information and works of literature. Reflecting a
diverse range of languages and cultures, Winnipeg remained the multilingual
publishing centre for most of Western Canada throughout the first half of
the twentieth century. Printers published a range of materials including
adults' and children's books, advertisements, notices, posters, performance
programmes, guides, almanacs, religious and political tracts, and
commemorative histories.

Numerous ethnic newspapers with small print runs also arose in the West.
During this period, newspapers generally had a religious, political, or
nationalist affiliation. The ethnic press and other publications
identified vital issues, presented various points of view, and informed
readers of important events. Moreover, they provided practical information
about agricultural techniques, labour conditions, and immigration
regulations. Many immigrants first learned to read by using an ethnic
newspaper as their text.

Labour organisers realised that, if workers from a multitude of
nationalities were to be drawn into emerging trade unions in the early
twentieth century, it was essential that there be a means of multilingual
communication. Some political material produced by the ethnic community
was not always acceptable to the authorities, however. During the
First World War for example, government and business apprehension regarding
organised socialism was compounded by the success of the Russian Bolsheviks
and the growing fear of "enemy aliens": immigrants from countries at war
with the British Empire. As a result, in 1918 the Canadian government
prohibited publications in twelve "enemy" languages, including Ukrainian
and German. This ban was lifted after the war, although for a period,
the text had to be accompanied by a translation in English or French.

Interior of the print shop of the Ukrainian socialist
newspaper, Robochyi narod (The Working People), about 1918. At centre-right
is Matthew Popovich who later became a founder of the Communist Party
of Canada.Ukrainian Labour Temple Collection, Winnipeg

The North Star Press

Much of the printing equipment and supplies on display in this exhibit
comes from the former North Star Press of Winnipeg. Begun in the 1930s,
the press printed The Prophetic Light, a non-denominational Christian
paper, written and published by North Star co-founder and Swedish immigrant,
F.E. Linder. A prolific ethnic editor and publisher, Linder settled in
Winnipeg in the 1920s. Through North Star Press, he also printed
multilingual versions of biblical treatises and instructional pamphlets
written by a Swedish-American couple, Charles and Julia Lee.
North Star Press was also a general commercial printer. The business
closed in 1995.

The Canadian Printing Industry After the Second World War

In the 1940s and 1950s, the printed word was a fundamental information
vehicle for Canadians, just as the Internet is today. As one commentator
noted, "Printing to-day is, both culturally and commercially, essential
to human life and progress." (John C. Tarr, Printing To-Day, 1945)

During the Second World War, there was substantial growth in the printing
industry, as the demand for newspapers, catalogues, advertising, product
literature, and printed packaging greatly increased. Although other
technologies were emerging, hot-metal methods of printing dominated the
technology before 1960, particularly in small print shops.

Chief among print shop components during this period was the Linotype
machine, used in the mechanical composition of type for printing. By
the 1960s, various cold type and phototypesetting technologies began
to supplant the Linotype.